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Gov. Paterson upped the gay-marriage ante on Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith yesterday, vowing to introduce his own bill to legalize same-sex unions if the Senate doesn’t act on its own.

“I’m going to put the bill out and just let people fight it out,” Paterson said on Buffalo’s WGR sports radio.

“I was going to do it anyway, but I think the Supreme Court decision in Iowa and the legislative passage of it in Vermont created a lot more publicity for it,” he continued.

The Democratic governor’s gay-marriage pledge came a day after an interview with an Ithaca radio station in which he called on Smith (D-Queens) to bring the controversial legislation to the Senate floor even if it’s headed for failure.

Smith, who says he personally supports same-sex marriage, announced in January that the measure lacked the 32 votes needed to pass the Senate after gay-marriage critic Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. (D-Bronx) threatened to block his rise as majority leader.